


Change Of Key

by Gildedmuse



Category: Rent (2005), Rent - Larson
Genre: First Meetings, M/M, One Shot, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash, The Well Hungarians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-26 23:41:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18727237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gildedmuse/pseuds/Gildedmuse
Summary: Mark has a lot to thank Collins for, like meeting Roger.





	Change Of Key

**Author's Note:**

> [posted in 2007]

**Change Of Key**

  
  
The nights in New York are a lot like the days. Loud, crowded, with the distinct smell of piss hanging in the air. At least, that is how they are on Avenue B.  
  
Still, the darkness, even if it isn’t really dark with all the headlights, streetlamps, and light pockets streaming out from the windows and polluting the air, seems more mellow. Even with the honking horns and drunken friends laughing and screaming at each other, even with the buzz of students flattering onto the roof, even with all the noise the night feels calmer to Mark.  
  
Of course that could be the pot.  
  
Mark inhales fully, letting the smoke settle in his chest. His eyes water, but Benny keeps staring at him with this confident little smirk like he expects Mark to start hacking, so he chokes himself to keep it all down.  
  
A group of young coeds trot by and distracts Benny’s attention long enough for Mark to quietly cough into his hands. Benny doesn’t notice, watching one of the girls plop down in the assembly of students sprawled out over the pigeon shit covered roof of the run down old factory that Mark now lives in.  
  
The all sit there with their ears perked up, listening intently to their professor. Collins is sitting on the wall of the roof, laughing over a Emerson joke.  
  
“He should charge,” Benny murmurs, falling back against the wall that him and Mark are huddled against as more students hurry by them. They all look so nervous when they get up at here, as if not sure how a philosophical discussion is supposed to take place on the top of a run down building that probably shouldn’t be standing, much less occupied. “Like, five dollars a student. He’d make plenty.”  
  
Mark wrinkles his nose, giving Benny enough time to snatch the joint from his lax fingers. “I don’t think communists anarchist in the technological revolution charge for the exchange of ideas.”  
  
Benny takes a drag, making it look easy as the smoke curls out from between his lips. His eyes follow another group, this time a girl attached to the arm of a guy. “I don’t think you can be a Marxist anarchist computer expert,” he points out. “It doesn’t work.”  
  
Mark eyes flicker to Collins, his smile wide as he lights up in front of his students. “The problem with this generation,” he tells his eager pupils. “Is that they would rather do coke than poke. People now would rather speed up time, get through it as fast as possible, than slow down and actually experience the world.”  
  
Some of the parents cheer him on, louder even than some homeless man on the street screaming at the heavens or some schizophrenic hallucination. No wonder all these kids were willing to come down from NYU to see him. “But then,” Mark mutters, taking the joint back, not minding so much that he coughs this time. “When has Collins made sense to anyone?”  
  
“Mm…” It’s a sort of noncommittal answer as Benny rises to his feet, stumbling over to the circle. Mark only watches until he sees his friend plop himself down next to a girl, flashing her a smile. Benny looks so out of place in the group, maybe because all the kids look so attention and Mark knows that Benny could give a rat’s ass what Collins is rambling about. Him and Mark have heard this all before, they’re only here for the free pot and because there isn’t much else to do when you’re broke on a Friday night.  
  
Collins talks on and the students laugh, occasionally speak up, and to Mark it seems like an image from the fifties, where people sat around and tried to change the world instead of bustling around the city wishing everyone else would just fuck off and not bother them. It’s almost lulling, Collins’ voice and the gentle questions and discussion of the students. Mark leans back against the brick wall, no longer listening to the words so much as the buzz of conversation.   
  
He’s almost asleep before he hears the ruffling off feet and someone settling beside him. “She have a girlfriend?”  
  
“Hmm?” Mark looks over to see a boy with hair that almost glows and looks like Mark’s had when he let Cindy try and cut it, with make up caked around his eyes that make him look sick and hollow. He sits down next to Mark with an easy sort of air, laying a guitar next to him against the wall. It’s so far from Benny it takes Mark a moment to catch up.  
  
“Oh,” he mutters, looking back to the crowd to see Benny still trying to flirt and Collins’s voice interrupting his work. “Sorry,” Mark says, glancing back to the strange guy beside him. “Thought you were Benny.”  
  
“Nope,” the guy says as he twists around to hold out a hand with black chipped nails. Mark stares at it for a moment, brain still working over time to get out of his comfortable haze, and finally reaching out to take hold of his hand. “I’m Roger.”  
  
“Shouldn’t you be back in class?“ Mark asks, letting go of Roger’s rough hand and picking the joint back up to his lips. “Not being a very good student, are you?”  
  
“Not a student.” He has a light laugh that seems just on the edge of nervous. It makes Mark frown, not sure what he did that is so funny. “I’m with her,” Roger explains, leaning over Mark to point into a mass of girls towards the side.  
  
In the orange light, Collins says, “We're all made of the same shit,” waving his hand towards the sky, and everyone’s head turns back obediently. “Cooked in a star until it gets sick and explodes us out into the universe. What it comes down to is, we're all just star guts, exploding and spreading out across the galaxy. All life is just astrodiarrhea.”  
  
“There,” Roger says, so close that Mark can feel his hot breath against his neck, warmer than the dirty air around them. “The girl laying down across the other girl’s lap,” he elaborates and Mark nod but doesn’t really look for her. He’s floating between Collin’s voice, the smoke, and the warmth pouring off this strange guy.   
  
He doesn’t feel like concentrating on the group enough to find one girl. He doesn’t feel like straining to concentrate on anything, but when he glances back to Roger the guy has this look fixed on him. Like he’s trying to get him to sober up by just watching him. It’s unnerving. “You’re not a student?” He asks, just to distract him from his stare.  
  
“Not anymore,” Roger answers as his expression does soften, thankfully. “Graduated last semester.”  
  
“Oh…” Mark always expected graduated to be more like Collins or his parents, but Roger doesn’t really remind him of either. He bites his lip and looks at him harder, but no matter how much he stares Roger still looks to young, immature, covered in bleach and worn down clothes and make up. “What was your major?”  
  
“Classical music.” Roger shrugs, looking away from Mark, eyes darting across the sky. It’s a quiet look, not really introspective but still. Much better than earlier, at least. “I know. It’s kind of…”  
  
“No,” Mark cuts in, shaking his head. “No, it’s cool. Like, Beethoven and Batch and opera and stuff? No, that‘s cool.” Mark is familiar with the feeling that falls over Roger when he talks about his major. He felt the same way when his dad went off on him about wanting a degree in filmmaking.   
  
The expression breaks as Roger grins, bright and close to laughter. It’s a nice smile, Mark notes. “Thanks. What about you? You in his class?”  
  
“Sort of…” He had seen Collins when he was a guest lecturer at Brown, and for all the things his parents blamed when they found out Mark was taking a year long break from college to clear out his head, Collins was never brought up, but that is who pushed him to it. Even after leaving school, living in the city with Collins and Benny visiting every weekend it feels just like school, but without the constant stress and need to please his professors. No one has ever created something great from a hand out instructions. “I live with him.”  
  
To his listening followers, Collins says, “According to Derrida we live without any real truth. We live in a virtual realty that we’ve constructed. The only difference between life and the internet is how much easier it is to find sex.”  
  
Roger smiles, laughing softer than the rest of the students. “I’ll bet that’s fun, huh?”  
  
“It’s.. interesting. You definitely need some of this,” Mark says, offering up the joint.  
  
Roger smiles strangely, his hand hovering over Mark‘s for a moment before he figures out how to take the joint. He inhales, hardly keeping the smoke down before he starts coughing, trying to cover it with his hand. Mark chuckles, good to know that someone is worse at this than him, patting Roger on the back to help to keep him from choking. “You okay?”  
  
Roger holds out the joint, finally sounding like he can breath again. “I’m not very good at that,” he says, voice high and rough. “I guess I’m what’s wrong with this generation, huh?”  
  
Mark misses the reference and frowns, but Roger just keeps smiling at him. It’s an odd smile, too a little too nervous and a little too soft for a real smile. Mark takes a quick drag from the joint, looking away from Roger. He isn’t sure what makes him so anxious about the guy, but he doesn’t want to have to think about it anymore. He just wants to detach and watch this night, enjoy it without any worry or stress.  
  
“Do you believe everything he says?” Roger asks, voice hot against Mark’s neck again. He takes another drag, turning eventually and looking down into his bright eyes.  
  
“I don’t know,” Mark admits, shrugging as he throws down the joint, stepping it out. “It’s interesting, I mean, but I don’t know… I want to but...”   
  
He isn’t really sure what he’s saying, but Roger nods like he understands, and that makes Mark feel better. “What do you do?” He asks, sitting back, giving Mark some room.  
  
“I’m a filmmaker,” Mark explains, smiling back at him. It isn’t so bad, talking to someone when you’re talking about something you love. And Mark does love films, or the idea of films and what they could do, really. More than he loved the checks his parents were sending him at college, more than he loved air conditioning in the hot New York summers. According to his last girlfriend, far more than he loved her.  
  
“That sounds cool,” Roger says, nodding along like he really is interesting. “You have a movie or something?”  
  
“Umm…” That breaks his mood a little. “Uh, not really,” he admits. Finishing a film seems like an impossibility. Nothing Mark does is ever good enough. It’s never the perfect film that he can see in his head, the one that really changes the world.  
  
“Oh.” Roger settles back, chewing on his black painted nails. The conversation fades for a while, except for the students murmuring quietly around Collins. “If you ever need music, I could help you out,” he offers, quickly smiling again, his emotions moving so fast it’s confusing to Mark. He likes it, though, how Roger seems to move with his emotions. Mark isn’t use to that, but he thinks he likes it.  
  
“I don’t know,” he admits. “I don’t think I’ll have many scenes calling for Bach.”  
  
Roger laughs, shaking his head. “No, I have a band,” he explains and reaches back, stroking the guitar. Yeah, Mark thinks, leaning over him to get a look at it. He’d forgotten about that. “You know, punk rock. It’s good. You should come to a show or something.”  
  
“Ummm, okay,” Mark says, stumbling over his answer for a while. He isn’t use to being invited out of the blue to concerts. Mark has spent the last month in the loft pacing back and fourth muttering about his script. Not exactly the most social behavior. But he likes concerts, being out with other people, making a scene. For everything he doesn’t miss about being at Brown, having people to hang out with and get drunk with on the weekends actually is something Mark wants back. How are you supposed to make a film off this rising new bohemian movement if you aren’t actually experiencing any of it?  
  
Mark gets the feeling that Roger gets to experience a lot of it, even if he seems a little nervous about some things and coughed even more than Mark when smoking. “Here,” Roger says, grabbing Mark’s hand and taking a pen from his pocket, licking the tip before scribbling over Mark’s hand. “Here, at nine on Saturday… Tomorrow. You just show up here. You should come,” he repeats, grinning brightly at him.  
  
“Maybe,” Mark says, smiling back at Roger. He sort of wish he wasn’t floating right now, was well grounded enough that he could say something really interesting to Roger to thank him for randomly dragging him out. He needs to be pushed every now and then, or Mark would probably do nothing but film. So he wants to say something impressive so Roger gets that he will come. “Uh, thanks.” Something not that.  
  
“Do…” Roger looks back, then to Mark, then back. Mark tries to follow him, but he’s a little too stoned to pick up on what Roger is so nervous about. “I mean, I could play something. So you know if it’s worth it to show up.”  
  
“Oh…” It doesn’t take Mark long to consider that at all. In the background, Collins is comparing human life to electronics, which Mark sure is interesting if he cared to listen. His head is mostly filled with the buzz of pot, and having Roger play for him sounds nice. “Okay, sure.”  
  
Roger lights up, so Mark choice the right thing. “Just a short song,” Roger promises, pulling the acoustic guitar onto his lap. He strums a little, and a few heads from the outer rim of the student filled circle turn, but in the loud night not too many notice. Roger’s rough fingers seem to be working to keep it quiet like that. “Just something short,” he promises again, like he figures that if it’s too long Mark will just get up and leave him.  
  
Roger starts to play, and Mark is certain that he doesn’t want to leave. It’s soft and still, more so than the city at least. Maybe it isn’t Mark’s idea of great art that is supposed to change the word, the lyrics Roger pours out are just your normal, nothing spectacular about it love lyrics, but they’re beautiful rather than catchy, and Mark sways with the music and the wind whipping over the roof.  
  
“Roger….” The music stops and Roger looks up, breaking the feeling that had settled in Mark’s chest. A young girl is standing right over him, legs spread out, hands on her hips, and a smile corked on her lips so that she looks almost like Peter Pan. Mark looks down at the joint and tosses it over the side of the building. That’s probably enough of that. “I can’t leave you anywhere, can I?”   
  
Roger lights up and he looks a little less sick. At the same time the girl with her wild hair and never grow up look leans down over him, and Mark can see just how small and frail she looks. They make a good pair. Far from beautiful, too worn down and not so healthy, but still a good pair.  
  
“It was just one song, babe,” Roger says, kissing the girl as he stands up, grabbing his guitar and hooking it over his shoulder. She falls perfectly onto his other one. It all just sort of fits together. “Call, okay?” He asks, looking nervous again, like he doesn’t expect Mark to say yes.  
  
But Mark does, waving and nodding as the girl grabs Roger’s hand, running off down the stairs, and Mark is still shaken up from the meeting. He isn’t use to being shaken up by people, but the more Mark thinks about it, the more he likes that.  
  
“People forget,” Collins is explaining. “That sexuality is not gender and gender is not identity, that these things are all shallow physical things not connected to our personality. Straight shouldn’t dictate a person’s politics. Woman shouldn’t be a defining part of anyone. People should be fluid, not stuck.”

 

  1. *



  
The address Roger scribbled across his arm is a hole in the wall club that looks like it was stuck between two buildings only after nothing else would fit. It is exactly the sort of place that takes in bands that other clubs wouldn’t touch, either because they only play techno dance music that no one has to think about or because they haven’t sold out, and who cares about a bunch of artists if they’re not playing for profit.  
  
There is no waiting line, just a guy in black beet clothes who looks miserably out of decade. “I.D?”  
  
Mark hands over his license so that the guy can barely glance at it before grabbing his wrist, yanking his hand forward to draw a big, glaring red X across his skin. “Thanks,” Mark mutters, more out of habit than anything else, rubbing the back of his hand where the guy had really dug the sharpie in. the guy goes back to looking alone and miserable, so Mark scurries in past him.  
  
For such a shit hole, the crowd is thicker than Mark had ever seen back at these kind of places up at Brown. It’s pretty impressive, Mark figures, for a bunch of local bands to draw this crowd when there has to be something better to do on a Saturday. Fuck, if Mark hadn’t spent so much time going over reels of film, even he could have thought of something better to do.  
  
The band on stage is catchy enough that Mark bobs his head to it. He dances like a spazz, but he doesn’t mind making a fool of himself so it’s okay. They’re not that good, though. “Guinness?” he says, leaning over the bar to get the guy’s attention.  
  
The bartender glances down at his hand, snorts, and walks away without another word.  
  
“Hey,” Mark twists back to see that the music has stopped. “Thank you guys for coming out tonight,” the lead singer, who sounds like he’s been choked to death, says as the rest of his band packs their equipment off stage. “Next up are the Well Hungarians,” he announces and there are cheers but mostly giggles. “So stick around.”  
  
Mark shifts a little, leaning up against the bar. It’s nine fifteen, but maybe they’re running a little late. A whole band behind, even. The club only opens at eight, so he’s sure he didn’t miss Roger. Mark glances down at his arm. Maybe he’s at the wrong place… No. It’s just hard to imagine the nervous kid with his acoustic guitar coming after those guys and some band named the Well Hungarians.  
  
“Hey!’ Mark says, turning back around, trying to get the bartender’s attention again. “Hey, do you know when Roger is playing? Thin looking guy. Make up. Neon hair? Hey…” The bartender ignores Mark, even when he starts waving his hand and gets the attention of almost every one else at the bar. “Fuck you,” he grumbles, settling back down. He’d just wait around, see if he comes up soon. What else does he have to do tonight?  
  
Mark bites his lip, trying to think of what else he does have to do. Work on his film, finish one, change the world. All of that, of course. Benny’s down from Brown, like usual, but he’s on a date with some girl from last night. Collins is… Where ever Collins usually is on nights like these. Mark doesn’t really ask. Mark really has a pretty empty social schedule.  
  
Drunken cheers go up and get Mark’s mind off everything he has to do for his film. He glances up on stage and - Jesus, that couldn’t be the same kid he’d meant on the roof. Sure it’s the same glow in the dark hair and black covered eyes but something is off.  
  
Mark stares for a while as the band sets up, trying to get a grasp on the fact that this, this guy standing in front of the crowd with a wicked sort of look on, really is the same Roger. The cheers keep up until he presses his lips against the head of the microphone and Mark’s mind instantly makes the connection to sex. Where the fuck did that even come from?  
  
Mark’s gut twists up with that feeling you get right before something really big happens. The room is filled with drunk kids but it seems like everything should be silent, on the edge of their seats and waiting. Just waiting.  
  
In reality, they’re screaming and laughing and chatting to each other, and Roger surveys all of this with a huge ass smile. He knows what Mark knows, that something big is coming.  
  
He strums out some tune up notes, the crowd cheers some more. It sounds nothing like the song from the roof, quickly getting faster, louder. Building up with each movement and pulling the crowd with it. Roger looks fucking proud of himself too as he carries them with him into the song, his voice dark and soft even with the rushed tune.  
  
Mark spends most of the show staring openly, thrown by this transformation. Roger spends it looking like a fucking God, grinding against his guitar and growling out song after song. He looks amazing, he looks roughish, he looks… high, Mark’s mind finally settles on that. Which is stupid the guy could barely keep a lung full of pot down but, no, he looks high.  
  
Somehow Mark moves from the bar to the side of the stage, not entirely sure when it happened, but he’s the first thing that Roger sees when he’s done, jumping from the side with his guitar in hand.  
  
“You came,” he says, flashing him a brilliant smile. His hair is weighed down by seat, his eyes brighter than is natural. His skin looks green, but most of that is the band lighting. “You like it?”  
  
“It was… Different. Then before, I mean.” Mark hadn’t been nervous talking to Roger before, because then Roger seemed kind of shy, really. Now, Mark isn’t entirely sure who he’s talking to at all. “I liked it, though.”  
  
“Yeah?” Roger is putting his guitar away, moving with this sort of withheld energy. “Hey, come here,” he says, grabbing hold of Mark’s shit, and he doesn’t know what else to do but go with him. “You have drinks… where ever you live?”  
  
“Umm…” Mark has to think for a moment, picturing their empty fridge. He thinks he remember drinks, yeah. “I think…. Captain Morgan‘s, maybe? Oh, and Absolut, we almost always have-”  
  
“Yeah,” Roger nods, swinging his guitar over his shoulder. “Yeah, let’s go there, then.”


End file.
